Sandwiched between Bond films Moonraker and For Your Eyes Only, Roger Moore ditches his womanizing Bond character for Rufus Excaliber ffolkes – a haughty, woman detesting, cat loving, cantankerous, needlepoint enthusiast, eccentric former naval officer who doesn’t suffer fools lightly, and heads a team of frogmen known as ffolkes’ ffusiliers. When terrorists posing as journalists – led by Psycho’s Anthony Perkins and Michael Parks – highjack an oil tanker, attach mines to the liquid gold, lay booby traps, take hostages and demand a kingly ransom, Lloyds of London reaches out to ffolkes and his men to save the environmental and financial crisis that will arise should the terrorists blow the tanker. James Mason as Admiral Brindsen finds ffolkes’ personality “very odd” but is certain he’s the right man for the job, and ffolkes convinces the Prime Minister to allow his team to infiltrate the tanker rather than give in to the terrorists demands in this Die Hard on the sea adventure, that’s skillfully directed by Andrew V. McLaglen (The Wild Geese).
